Cinnamon Buns
by raspberry truffles
Summary: Natalie and Ethan have a school wide breakfast and Luke is baking to supply some of the food. Light, fluffy, slice of life.


Title: Cinnamon Buns

Pairing: Luke and Reid

Other Characters: Natalie, Ethan, a little bit of Holden and mentions of Lily, Emma and Meg..

A/N Special thanks to nancygrew who allowed me to use Hot Mom, she says it's canon, but the term always makes me think of her great fic!

Summary: Natalie and Ethan are having a school wide breakfast, and Luke is baking. This is AU. Luke and Reid are living together. It's part of my Luke and Reid verse, but you don't need to read any of my other fics to understand this one!

Disclaimer: These are not my characters, all belong to ATWT and its parent company(ies) All mistakes are mine.

Rating PG

Reid walked in the door at 9:00, exhausted and looking forward to a little quality time with Luke. He'd been picturing Luke, lying on the couch, naked and waiting for him to come home. What he found instead was Luke in the kitchen in the midst of a hurricane.

"Whatcha doin'?" Reid asked, puzzled and not all that pleased by the commotion.

"Hi Reid," Luke said, not even looking up. "Natalie and Ethan have a school wide breakfast tomorrow morning."

"Uh huh," Reid said, wondering what fresh hell this was going to bring to his life. "I'm not going to be a chaperone, or," he paused in distaste, "a server."

"Huh?" Luke asked. "Geez I better find out if we need to volunteer. Thanks for the suggestion."

"Luke," Reid huffed. "I wasn't suggesting anything. Now tell me, what the hell are you doing?"

"Oh," Luke said, feeling surprised. "I'm making cinnamon buns for Ethan's class and a breakfast cake for Natalie's."

"You're baking for your siblings and not for me?" Reid asked, grumpily.

"Is your class having a breakfast that I don't know about?" Luke teased. "Did you want to bring in something for those hard working nurses and orderlies?"

"Shut up," Reid glared, before leaning in to kiss Luke. "By the way, what the hell is a 'breakfast cake'?"

Luke shrugged. "Natalie made it up. She didn't like any of the suggestions on the sign up sheet, so she wrote down breakfast cake."

"Uh huh, that sounds like a good idea," Reid smiled. "Now what are you going to do?"

"Oh yeah," Luke said. "I'm making a vanilla sponge cake, filling it with strawberry mousse and then I'm going to ice it with vanilla scented, slightly sweetened whipped cream and then garnished with fresh strawberries. I'll fan one out for the centre."

"Yum!" Reid replied. "Are you going to make one for us too, you know so that I can taste test it for you?"

Luke smiled. "Nice try, but I think the cake will be fine without having you taste test one for me."

"Well at least save me a cinnamon bun."

"I'll see what I can do!"

At 5am Luke's alarm went off. He turned it off as quickly as possible, but Reid must have heard it as he rolled over and rubbed his erection against Luke's ass.

"Sorry," Luke whispered, trying to get away, but Reid just gripped him tighter.

"Where are you going?" Reid wondered, his voice heavy with sleep.

"Go back to sleep, I have to go and finish the cinnamon buns and build the cake."

"Oh my God, you're insane," Reid mumbled and reluctantly rolled over and went back to sleep.

"I'll wake you when we have to go and pick up the kids," Luke whispered, knowing full well that Reid was already fast asleep.

Luke went to the kitchen and retrieved the first batch of dough from the refrigerator and allowed it to warm up while he whipped up a second batch. While the second batch was rising he quickly made the filling and melted the butter. Then he rolled out the first dough, carefully measuring it to make sure that it was the correct thickness. Once satisfied, he grabbed his favourite pastry brush and spread the melted butter as evenly as possible. He then sprinkled the dough with the cinnamon and sugar mixture and carefully rolled it up. He then grabbed the serrated bread knife and the measuring tape and cut up the dough into individual cinnamon buns. He placed them in the prepared pan and allowed them to proof, while he repeated the process with the other batch. He placed the first batch in the oven and then got ready to build the cake.

Luke prepared the strawberry mousse and then spread one third of it over the bottom layer of the cake, then he covered it with a second layer of cake and repeated until the cake was built and ready to be iced.

The first batch of cinnamon buns was ready so he took them out and put the second batch in the oven.

"What the hell are you doing?" Reid asked as he stumbled into the kitchen rubbing his eyes.

"Good morning Reid," Luke said. "I'm baking off the cinnamon buns and finishing off the cake."

"You are insane, you do realize that right?" Reid asked. "Is there any coffee and how many cinnamon buns can I eat?"

"The coffee is ready and you can have one cinnamon bun," Luke answered. "I mean it Reid, just have one. I saved you a little bit of the strawberry mousse if you want to try that. It's in the fridge."

Reid kissed Luke. "Thanks," Reid said about to grab a pastry. "Hey are you gonna ice these?"

Luke sighed. "Yes, I just wanted to finish the cake first."

Reid pouted.

"I'll ice them in a minute. Grab your coffee."

"Thanks!"

Luke prepared the icing for the cinnamon buns and quickly iced them before moving on to whipping and flavouring the cream to ice the "breakfast" cake.

"God Luke, these are amazing," Reid commented around a mouthful of cinnamon bun. "Why don't you make these more often?"

Luke glared at Reid. "They're a lot of work and a lot of calories," Luke paused to answer as he finished icing the cake. "But, I'm glad that they taste good."

"Didn't you try one?" Reid asked.

"God no," Luke shook his head in horror. "You know that I can't eat while I'm cooking, especially when I'm making batches of things. By the time I'm finished I'm so sick of the stuff that I just want it to disappear."

Reid came over to nuzzle Luke's neck. "That's what makes us a perfect pair, you cook and I eat. Clearly defined roles," Reid finished nodding his head.

"Ha ha ha,, "Luke said. "Now you'd better go and shower before we go to pick up Natalie and Ethan and take them to school."

"What are you talking about?" Reid asked, unable to scowl while he was eating Luke's strawberry mousse. "Where is Hot But Useless Mom and why isn't she taking the kids to school?"

"Reid, please don't start," Luke sighed, heavily. "My Mom was feeling a bit down, so she is spending the week at a spa in Bay City."

"What does she have to feel down about, exactly?" Reid grumbled.

"I don't know, I think that things aren't going the way she planned with my Dad," Luke shrugged, like that explained everything.

Reid was always annoyed at how often Lily took advantage of Luke, but he wisely kept his mouth shut as he knew that it would only hurt Luke more to put him in the middle.

"Okay," Reid said. "What time do I need to be ready and what do I have to do?"

Luke beamed at Reid with love and relief. "The kids need to be at school at 9:00 so we should pick them up at 8:40, so we need to leave here at 8:30. Is that okay?"

Reid looked at his watch and nodded. "Yup, now what do I have to do at the school?"

"Nothing really, but if you could I would appreciate it if you would help me and the kids take the food into school. I borrowed Emma's cake carrier so Natalie will be fine on her own with that, but the second batch of cinnamon buns will be hot, so I'll need to bring oven mitts with me to take them into the school, and the other pan will be heavy, so it would be great if you could carry those," Luke finished staring up at Reid hopefully, making his eyes big and soft.

"Fine," Reid muttered. "But you owe me, Snyder," he finished as he headed off to the bathroom to have a shower, smiling as he heard Luke laugh in response.

Twenty-five minutes later the two men were on their way to pick up Natalie and Ethan from the farm.

Holden met them at the door. "Hi Luke, Reid," he started. "I just found out that you were taking the kids to school. It would have been great if you had called ahead to let me know."

Reid rolled his eyes and muttered 'unfreakinbelievable' as Ethan suddenly barged through the front door and hurled himself at Reid.

"Reid, you came too," he hollered beaming at Reid. Suddenly Ethan's face fell and he turned nervously to Luke. "Is there any food left for the breakfast," he stage whispered to his big brother.

Luke nodded his head solemnly. "I only let Reid eat one cinnamon bun."

"Thanks Luke," Ethan said. "Are they as good as usual?" Ethan asked Reid.

"Yes, they're delicious."

"What are you talking about?" Holden said looking perplexed. "Are there cinnamon buns for me?"

"No," Reid answered, emphatically.

"Natalie and Ethan have a school wide breakfast, so I did some baking for their contributions," Luke explained calmly, "But we really have to go, can you please call Natalie for me?"

"I'm right here," Natalie sighed, dramatically. "Now let's get going, I don't want to be late."

Reid laughed and headed back to the car.

"See ya," Holden called out, wondering belatedly if he should have been the one to help out.

When they arrived at the school, Ethan was bursting with pride over his brother's cinnamon buns. He couldn't wait for his classmates to get a chance to taste them.

Natalie was a little shy hanging out with her brothers and Reid, hoping that Luke would come to her classroom with her.

Reid couldn't help notice that some people just brought in boxes of dry cereal.  
>"What's up with all the boxes of Rice Crispies?" ™ he ventured aloud.<p>

"Oh that was one of the choices on the sign-up sheet," Ethan responded.

"Did you know you could just send in a box of cereal, instead of going to all this trouble?" Reid whispered into Luke's ear.

Luke looked horrified at the idea. "Grandma Emma would never send in anything that wasn't homemade when I was a kid, and I didn't want Natalie or Ethan to miss out just because Grandma is out of town looking after Aunt Meg."

"Ah yes, good old Nutmeg," Reid nodded, wondering if he would ever really get the hang of belonging to Luke's family.

"Shh," Luke admonished. "Natalie, can you come to Ethan's classroom with us so we can drop off the cinnamon buns, and then I'll come with you to your classroom, Is that okay with you?"

Natalie beamed at Luke, relieved. "That would be great. Reid you can come too, if you'd like."

"Why not?" Reid shrugged. "Besides I want to see the 'breakfast' cake!"

"Me too," Natalie agreed.

Moments later they all entered Ethan's busy classroom and were greeted by the teacher who seemed delighted with the baked goods and quickly found a spot for them. All of the kids gathered around the ever increasing amount of food, gleefully anticipating all of the sugar that they were about to inhale.

"Thanks again, Luke," Ethan said just before the trio headed out to Natalie's class.

Things were only marginally quieter in this class. Reid watched as Luke popped off the top of the cake carrier and revealed a beautiful cake, carefully adorned with piped whipped cream and fanned strawberries. Reid wasn't sure that everyone would consider this breakfast food, but he knew that he would gladly eat it at any time.

"Thanks Luke," Natalie said, as she reached up to give her brother a quick hug.

"No problem," he replied, hugging her back. "Just make sure to collect all of the dishes from here and from Ethan's class, or Grandma will kill us when she finds out.

Natalie grinned and then promised to sort everything out.

Reid took one last longing look at the cake, before Luke urged him out of the door.

When they got settled in the car, Reid leaned over and kissed Luke lovingly on the lips.

"Not that I'm complaining, but what was that for?"

"You are an excellent big brother," Reid smiled.

"So, are you feeling brotherly towards me now? Cause I think that would make you the big brother," Luke said in mock confusion.

Reid reached over and grabbed one of Luke's hands and brought it to his crotch. "There is nothing brotherly about how I feel about you, now lets go home so I can show you some non-brotherly love."

Luke turned the key in the ignition. "Mmm," Luke said dreamily. "I saved us some whipped cream and some strawberries. In case you're interested."

"Drive," Reid said, and Luke did.

End notes. As always recipes are available upon request.


End file.
